Stem Cell Research Information + Impact

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1.: Stem Cells May Cure the Economy From: Stephen Meyer

2.: McCain Banking on a Confederacy of Dunces From: Stephen Meyer

3.: ELIZABETH DOLE SLANDERS STEM CELL SUPPORTER: Calls Sunday School Te From: Stephen Meyer

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1.: Stem Cells May Cure the Economy

Posted by: "Stephen Meyer" Stephen276@comcast.net stephen_meyer_stemcells

Sun Nov 2, 2008 6:02 pm (PST)

Stem Cells May Cure the Economy - According to the Centers for Disease
Control, the medical care costs of people with chronic diseases account
for more than 75% of the nation's $2 trillion medical care costs.
See (http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/overview.htm) for verification. That
mountain of debt may well be the root cause of the recession. Consider
that health care costs are now more than all federal income taxes
combined. Verify that at
(http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/article/0,,id=102886,00.html
<http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/article/0,,id=102886,00.html> ). Our
government supported medical research when it came to our own Dr. Jonas
Salk. Where would we be if polio had still been around for a half
century? Consider stem cell research! Unused embryonic stem cells as
well as adult stem cells can make a difference! Think about your loved
ones – think about moving forward with medical science! Vote in
favor of stem cell research and therapy! It could save your life or
that of your loved one!" Keep up the good work, Don!!!! Linda Scott
Dallas, TX

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2.: McCain Banking on a Confederacy of Dunces

Posted by: "Stephen Meyer" Stephen276@comcast.net stephen_meyer_stemcells

Sun Nov 2, 2008 6:03 pm (PST)

McCain Banking on a Confederacy of Dunces By David Sirota
<http://mailcenter2.comcast.net/community/profile/236> [
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/4007/mccain_banking_on_a_confederacy\
_of_dunces/
<http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/4007/mccain_banking_on_a_confederac\
y_of_dunces/> ]

Is John McCain stupid, or does he believe we are? That's the
question as he criticizes Barack Obama for allegedly trying to
"redistribute the wealth" with a plan to lower taxes on the
middle class and raise them on the super-rich.

Of course, the Democrat's proposal would merely slow down (not fully
halt) the less-talked-about redistribution whereby Washington sends
middle-class money up the income ladder. Either McCain doesn't know
about this kleptocracy and is the dumbest presidential candidate in
history, or he thinks America is too ignorant to recognize theft. Which
is it?

I'm guessing the latter, since the evidence is so overwhelming.

In the last eight years, we the little people have been forced to
provide more and more of the taxes fueling America's redistribution
machine. As the Congressional Budget Office reports, the $715 billion in
tax breaks that President Bush gave to those making more than $342,000 a
year began dramatically shifting the overall tax burden from the rich
onto the rest of us. Meanwhile, because of lobbyist-crafted loopholes,
most corporations pay zero federal income taxes, according to the
Government Accountability Office. The result is what Warren Buffett
admits: When counting all taxes (income, payroll, property, etc.),
billionaires and Big Business often pay lower effective tax rates than
their employees.

The output of the redistribution machine is becoming just as regressive.
In the age of Halliburton fraud and ExxonMobil subsidies, our government
spends $93 billion a year on corporate welfare. (For comparison,
that's roughly three times what it spends on a traditional welfare
program like food stamps.) That doesn't include the recent bailout
giving $700 billion to the same banks currently doling out $70 billion
in executive pay and bonuses — a scheme the Financial Times says
"amounts to a large transfer of resources from lower to higher
income earners."

Thanks to these redistributive policies — policies McCain championed
in Congress — the richest 1 percent today owns a larger share of
America's wealth than at any time since before the Great Depression.

The Republican standard-bearer likely knows all this, but his fetish is
fact-free fairy tales — the kind presenting seven houses, a
beer-industry fortune and lockstep conservatism as mavericky
Joe-the-Plumber populism. When it comes to economics, McCain is banking
on Americans believing similarly inane myths — specifically, those
portraying obscene affluence as the commonplace achievement under
royalist rule.

During the indigence and socioeconomic immobility of the 19th
century's Gilded Age, this meme flourished through Horatio Alger
stories. Today, one in five American children live in poverty, and
authorities from The Economist magazine to The Wall Street Journal note
that our country exhibits the least amount of upward economic mobility
in the industrialized world — less than even Europe's supposedly
sclerotic socialisms. In light of that, sustaining the "American
Dream" narrative requires updated rags-to-riches fantasies like
"MTV Cribs," HBO's "Entourage" — and now McCain
`08.

The Arizona senator's pulp fiction packs an extra-nationalistic
punch, however. We are not only expected to support regressive
redistribution, but also to believe that stopping such robbery is
subversive. McCain implies Obama is backing Soviet conquest by proposing
to finance tax cuts for 95 percent of American workers with tax
increases on the richest 5 percent. When Joe Biden said it is
"patriotic" for millionaires to pay their fair share of taxes,
Republicans waved the bloody shirt of Reaganism and attacked him —
as if Al Capone-style tax evasion is how aristocrats display their true
love of country.

The GOP campaign, in short, is a brew of redbaiting and free-market
zealotry, a concoction with a poisonous purpose: resurrecting the
everyone-for-themselves pathologies that perpetuate the status quo. And
if we revert to selfish form during this economic crisis, then
McCain's cynical calculation is correct: America is a confederacy of
dunces.

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3.: ELIZABETH DOLE SLANDERS STEM CELL SUPPORTER: Calls Sunday School Te

Posted by: "Stephen Meyer" Stephen276@comcast.net stephen_meyer_stemcells

Mon Nov 3, 2008 5:59 am (PST)

ELIZABETH DOLE SLANDERS STEM CELL SUPPORTER: Calls Sunday School
Teacher "Godless".

Should a craven lie deny America a strong stem cell research-supporting
Senator?

A scurrilous attack ad was just run by incumbent Republican Elizabeth
Dole against stem cell research supporter and Senatorial candidate Kay
Hagan of North Carolina .

In an expensive and widely-distributed television ad, Dole attacked
Hagan's religious faith, calling her "Godless".

Believe it or not, the ad shows Kay Hagan's face with her lips
moving—and somebody else's voice saying: "There is no
God".

Ms. Hagan, by the way, is an elder in her Presbyterian Church for more
than ten years. She has worked as a Sunday School teacher for that
church, and assists on its missions.

The shame is on Senator Dole, who personally approved the ad, for
stooping to such depths to clutch on to her power.

What a tragedy it would be if such slimy trash were allowed to deny
North Carolina a stem cell supporting Senator.

Unfortunately, propaganda sometimes works. North Carolina is a deeply
Christian state, and if that lie is believed, even for just a few
days…

As Ms. Hagan's campaign said: "Elizabeth Dole would love nothing
more than to distract from the issues and her record for the last five
days of the campaign…."

And speaking of Elizabeth Dole's record, where does she stand on
stem cell research?

She takes her cue from George Bush's endless restrictions—no new
stem cell lines, ever.

America has repudiated such short-sighted obstacles to progress.
Legislation to moderate those restrictions has twice passed the House of
Representatives and the United States Senate, only to be vetoed each
time by President Bush, with the help of Senator Dole.

With an estimated 100 million citizens suffering from incurable disease
and disability, and health care costs skyrocketing beyond our ability to
pay, families are united in their determination to have access to the
best medical treatment modern science can provide.

How do North Carolinians feel about the research that matters so much to
so many?

They support embryonic stem cell research by a huge majority, more than
5-3 in favor*.

Why does this matter to me?

My son Roman Reed is paralyzed. His neck was broken playing college
football. But we have not given up on hope.

Our son inspired California 's first embryonic stem cell research
funding, through a law named after him, the Roman Reed Spinal Cord
Injury Research Act.

On March 1, 2002, in the Reeve-Irvine Research Center at UC Irvine, I
held in my hand a laboratory rat which had been paralyzed, but which now
walked again, thanks to embryonic stem cells- and this while my
paralyzed son watched from his wheelchair.

That research experiment is now before the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) being considered for human trials. If all goes well, in about
three months, newly-paralyzed people may have the chance my son did
not—the opportunity to walk out of the hospital, instead of being
condemned to a wheelchair for life.

But new stem cell research lines would not be allowed under the
Bush-Dole restrictions.

Both Presidential candidates know this, and have pledged to overturn
those restrictions: despite their differences, John McCain and Barrack
Obama understand the need for new embryonic stem cell research lines.

But not Elizabeth Dole.

She is out of touch with North Carolina 's hopes and dreams for
cure, not only for paralysis, but for many diseases and disabilities
considered incurable, but which stem cell therapies may alleviate or
cure.

Now, behind in the polls, Ms. Dole has even lost track of the North
Carolina State Motto, Esse Quam Videri: "to be, rather than to
seem."

In North Carolina , honesty matters.

I am myself an outsider to this state, so maybe my opinions do not
matter. But I appreciate Ms. Hagan's courageous support for the
research which may allow my son to fulfill the great prediction of
Christopher Reeve, who said, in a private letter to our family:

"One day, Roman and I will stand up from our wheel chairs, and walk
away from them forever."—Christopher Reeve.

Cure did not come in time for our champion, but the flame of his faith
still lights our way. The research he supported will go forward—with
people like Kay Hagan in office.

I urge every stem cell research supporter in America to do what I just
did: go to www.Kayhagan.com <http://www.kayhagan.com/> , and contribute
$25. If you can afford more, do so.

Help her withstand these disgusting attack ads. Do it not just because
Kay Hagan is a fighter for stem cell research. But because North
Carolina —and America-- need deserve women like her in leadership.

People who will tell the truth.

Thank you.

Don C. Reed is the citizen-sponsor of California 's Roman Reed
Spinal Cord Injury Research Act, named after his paralyzed son.

*When asked for their overall opinion on medical research involving stem
cells from human embryos…a majority, 53.4%, said they either support
or "strongly support" it; 30.8% said they oppose…"—The
News Observer, newsobserver.com <http://newsobserver.com/> , October 7,
2008

Don C. Reed Sponsor, Roman Reed Spinal Cord Injury Research Act
Founder and Co-Chair, Californians for Cures Don Reed is also Vice
President of Public Policy for Americans for Cures Foundation; opinions
voiced here as an individual may or may not reflect those of the
Foundation.

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